(IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 61

Vol. 2, No. 8, August 2010

An Exploration of Ad-hoc Network in a Real World

builds in a Laboratory Environment
Nitiket N Mhala1 and N K Choudhari 2
1
Associate Professor, Head, Department of Electronics Engg., BDCOE, Sevagram,India
nitiket_m@rediffmail.com
2
Principal, Bhagwati Chadurvedi COE, Nagpur,India
drnitinchoudhari@gmail.com

Abstract: A mobile ad-hoc network is a collection of mobile undersea operation and temporary offices such as campaign
nodes forming an ad-hoc network without the assistance of any Headquarters.
centralized structures. These networks introduced a new art of
network establishment and well be suited for an environment
whether either the infrastructure is lost or deploy an
2. Related Background
infrastructure is not very cost effective. The paper focuses The whole life-cycle of ad-hoc networks could be
briefly on whole life cycle of adhoc networks .We discuss the categorized into the first, second, and the third generation
open problems related to the ad-hoc network. The contribution
of this paper is the exploration of ad-hoc network in a small
ad-hoc networks systems. Present ad-hoc networks systems
laboratory environment based on IEEE 802.11 standardized are considered the third generation. The first generation
medium access protocol under Linux at a relatively very low goes back to 1972. At the time, they were called PRNET
cost. (Packet Radio Networks). In conjunction with ALOHA
Keyword: Ad-hoc network, PCMCIA, MAC, ICMP,ARP, Linux (Areal Locations of Hazardous Atmospheres) and CSMA
approaches for medium access control and a kind of
1. Introduction distance-vector routing PRNET were used on a trial basis to
provide different networking capabilities in a combat
One of the most vibrant and active “new” fields today is that
environment. The second generation of ad-hoc networks
of adhoc networks. Significant research in this area has been
emerged in 1980s, when the ad-hoc network systems were
ongoing for nearly 30 years, also under the names of packet
further enhanced and implemented as a part of the SURAN
radio or multihop networks. Within the past few years,
(Survivable Adaptive Radio Networks) program.[1] This
though, the field has seen a rapid expansion of visibility and
provided a packet-switched network to the mobile battlefield
work due to the proliferation of inexpensive, widely
in an environment without infrastructure. This program
available wireless devices and the network community’s
proved to be beneficial in improving the radios' performance
interest in mobile computing. An adhoc network is a
by making them smaller, cheaper, and resilient to electronic
(possibly mobile) collection of communication devices
attacks. In the 1990s, the concept of commercial ad-hoc
(nodes) that wish to communicate, but have no fixed
networks arrived with notebook computers and other viable
infrastructure available ,and have no pre-determined
communications equipment. At the same time, the idea of a
organization of available links. Individual nodes are
collection of mobile nodes was proposed at several research
responsible for dynamically discovering which other nodes
conferences.[2,3]. The IEEE 802.11 subcommittee had
they can directly communicate with. A key assumption is
adopted the term "ad-hoc networks" and the research
that not all nodes can directly communicate with each other,
community had started to look into the possibility of
so nodes are requested to delay packets on behalf of other
deploying ad-hoc networks in other areas of application.
node in order to deliver data across the network. A
Meanwhile, work was going on to advance the previously
significant feature of adhoc network is that rapid changes in
built ad-hoc networks. GloMo (Global Mobile Information
connectivity and link characteristics are introduced due to
Systems) and the NTDR (Near-term Digital Radio) are some
node mobility and power control practices. Ad hoc networks
of the results of these efforts. GloMo was designed to
can be built around any wireless technology, including
provide an office environment with Ethernet-type
infrared and radio frequency. Ad hoc networks are suited
multimedia connectivity anywhere and anytime in handheld
for use in situations where infrastructure is either not
devices. NTDR is the only "real" non-prototypical ad-hoc
available, not trusted, or should not be relied on in times of
network that is in use today. It uses clustering and link-state
emergency. A few examples include: military solders in the
routing, and is self-organized into a two-tier ad-hoc
field, sensors scattered throughout a city for biological
network. Development of different channel access
detection, an infrastructure less network of notebook of
approaches now in the CSMA/CA and TDMA molds, and
computers in a conference or campus setting, the forestry or
several other routing and topology control mechanisms were
lumber industry, rare animal tracking, space exploration,
some of the other inventions of that time. Later on in mid-
62 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 8, August 2010

1990s, within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), 3. Ad hoc network in a our Laboratory
the Mobile Ad-Hoc Networking working group was formed Environment
to standardize routing protocols for ad-hoc networks. The
development of routing within the working group and the Our Approach is based on IEEE802.11 standardized
larger community resulted in the invention of reactive and medium access protocol based on collision avoidance and
proactive routing protocols [4] .Soon after, the IEEE 802.11 tolerated hidden terminals usable for building mobile adhoc
subcommittee standardized a medium access protocol that network using notebooks and 802.11 PCMCIA cards. The
was based on collision avoidance and tolerated hidden Basic purpose is to constitute an adhoc network under Linux
terminals, making it usable for building mobile ad-hoc in a laboratory environment for the academic research
networks prototypes out of notebooks and 802.11 PCMCIA purpose.
cards. HYPERLAN and Bluetooth were some other ad-hoc
network standards that addressed and benefited ad-hoc
networking.
Open Problems
Adhoc networks designed for military, scalability is one of
the most important open problems. Scalability in adhoc
network can be broadly defined as whether the network is
able to provide an acceptable level of service to packets
even in the presence of large number of nodes in the
network. As in wired network, this capability is closely
related as how quickly network protocol control overhead
increases a function of increase in the number of nodes and
link changes. In proactive networks the scalability is often
accomplished by introducing routing and or location
hierarchy in the network [5],or by limiting the scope of
control updates to location close to the changes [6,7].In
reactive adhoc networks, dynamically limiting the scope of
route request and attempting local repairs to broken routes
are often used. Since adhoc networks do not assume the
availability of fixed infrastructure, it follows that individual
nodes may have to rely on portable limited power source.
The idea of energy –efficiency therefore becomes an
important problem in an adhoc network. Most existing Figure 1. Logical Implementation of Ad hoc Network on
solutions for saving energy in an adhoc network resolve each Node
around the reduction of power used by radio transceiver. At The physical layer must adapt to rapid changes in link
the MAC level and above, this is often done by relatively characteristics. The Multiple Access control (MAC) layer
sending the receiver into sleep mode or by using a needs to minimize collisions, allow fair access and semi
transmitter with variable output power and selecting routes reliably transports data over the short wireless links in the
that require many short hops, instead of few longer hops [8]. presence of rapid changes and hidden or exposed terminals.
The ability of fixed, wireless networks to satisfy quality of The network layer needs to determine and distribute
service (QoS) requirement is another open problem.Adhoc information used to calculate paths in a way that maintains
network further complicates the known QoS challenges in efficiency when links change often and bandwidth is at
wire line networks with RF channel characteristics that premium. It also needs to integrate smoothly with
often change unpredictly, along with the difficulty of traditional, non adhoc-aware internet works and perform
sharing the channel medium with many neighbours, each functions such as auto configuration in this changing
with its own set of potentially changing QoS requirement. environment. The Transport layer must be able to handle
Reflecting the multilayer nature of adhoc network, there are delay and packet loss statistics that are very different than
numerous attempts to improve the QoS problems from the wired networks. Finally; applications need to be designed to
service contracts [9] to the MAC layer. Similarly the handle frequent connection and disconnection with peer
security issue in adhoc networks [10].Since nodes uses the applications as well as widely varying delay and packet loss
shared medium in a potentially insecure environment; they characteristics
are susceptible to Deniol of Service (DoS) attacks that are
harder to track down than in wired network. Finally, a
3.1 Challenges in a Laboratory Environment
problem that overarches all these others is the lack of well
defined and widely accepted models for RF path attenuation, Testing adhoc network in a laboratory environment presents
mobility and traffic. These tightly interrelated models are a number of challenges. The most obvious challenge is
needed for quantityfying and comparing adhoc system being able to test the effects of node mobility [11] on the
performance to a common baseline. adhoc routing protocols and adhoc applications. Moreover,
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Vol. 2, No. 8, August 2010

configuring individual nodes, installing patches, monitoring BOOTPROTO=static-

log files, updating software and debugging beta releases of WIRELESS=yes
experimental software distributions on a modest size of RATE=54Mb/s
adhoc network can be very time consuming. Recreating Set Mode =Ad-hoc
realistic environmental conditions and signal transmission ESSID=Prit
characteristics using off-the-shelf computing nodes and IPV6INIT=No
wireless cards in a laboratory setting is also very difficult. ONBOOT=Yes
USERCTL=No
3.2 Hardware and Software requirements
PEERDNS=No
3.2.1 Laptops/Desktops CHANNEL=1
At least three nodes with Intel Pentium or higher IPADDR=192.168.0.96
Server: Linux system (ix86) with one wired and one NETMASK=255.255.0.0
wireless interface
Clients: Any Linux system with one wired and one wireless 3) ifconfig ath0 up
interface 4) ifup ath0
5) vi /etc/resolve.conf
3.2.2 Wireless LAN Card Add
Ad hoc network needs wireless LAN cards (IEEE 802.11) name server 192.168.1.1
which should be configured to Adhoc mode.
4.2 Installation of madwifi driver [14] in order to
Our Choice is Netgear [12]
activate wireless interface
NETGEAR WG511T 108 Mbps Wireless PC Card cd madwifi-0.9.4
NETGEAR WG311T 108 Mbps Wireless PCI Card make
(With Chip set Atheros 5212) make install
/sbin/modprobe wlan
3.2.3 Madwifi Driver (madwifi-0.9.4) /sbin/modprobe ath_hal
A Linux kernel driver for Atheros –based wireless LAN /sbin/modprobe ath_pci
devices. The driver support ad hoc mode of operation. The
4.3 Creation of actual Ad hoc mode in real field
three important modules we need
We constitute the adhoc network for four nodes physically
(a) ath_pci available in laborotory on each wireless interface ath0.
Supports PCI,MiniPCA,Cardbus devices
Node A 192.168.0.91 MAC address (00:14:6c:8d:2b:a8),
(b) ath_hal
Node B 192.168.0.96 MAC address
It contains Atheros Hardware Access Layer (HAL) (00:18:48:71:5e:17)
(c) ath_wlan
Contains 802.11 state machines, protocol support and other Node C 192.168.0.99 MAC adress (00:18:4d:9c:4cd9) ,
device-independent support needed by any 802.11 device. Node D 192.168.0.92 MAC adress (00:18:4d:71:5d:f4)

3.2.4 Operating System If ath0 wireless interface already exist for instance, we have
Linux with kernel 2.6 to destroy it by issuing following command
Our choice is FedoraCore7 Linux kernel version 2.6.21
[13] Wlanconfig ath0 destroy

4. Formation of Ad hoc network
4.1 Installation of Wireless Cards
After physical installation of wireless cards, they are
configured as below to generate wireless interface as ath0
under Linux on each node with different IP Addresses
1) Vi /etc/modprobe.conf file Add a line alias ath0 ath_pci
2) Vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ath0
Inorder to create an interface (called ath0) in adhoc mode,
following command is issued on each node
Wlanconfig ath0 create wlandev wifi0 wlanmode adhoc
The connectivity with each node is tested by the use of
simple ping command. The ping statistics conferred that the
Node A, Node B and Node C are communicating with each
other except than node D.

Add

DEVICE =ath0
64 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security,
Vol. 2, No. 8, August 2010

(192.168.0.91) and Node B (192.168.0.96) are connected

using ICMP proocol.

Figure 2. capturing of packets on ath0

Figure 4. Identification of AODV protocol

Figure 3. capturing of packets on ath0

The Above Figures illustrate the capturing [15] of the
packets on the interface ath0. Node C (192.168.0.99)
communicate with Node B (192.168.0.96) using ICMP
protocol.The packet number 31 and 49 are obsreved as
Malformed packet.
Packet Number 40 and 41 resolve the concept of Adress
Resolution protocol (ARP).They attempt Full Duplex
communication among the two MAC adresses .The same is
the case for packet number 55 and 57.Similarly Node A
Figure 5. Flow graph
 (IJCNS) International Journal of Computer and Network Security, 65
The graph analysis indicate the packets flooding from
source Node A (192.168.0.91) only Broadcast to the
destination (255.255.255.255) using UDP protocol on port
654 signifying AODV route reply from destination port.
Here, we are not applying any external AODV routing
daemon either in user space or kernel space.
5. Conclusion
The dynamical nature of an ad hoc network is very
interesting. The strength of the connection can change
rapidly in time or even disappear completely. Nodes can
appear, disappear and re-appear as the time goes on and all
the time the network connection should work between the
nodes that are part of it. As one can easily imagine, the
situation in adhoc networks with respect to ensuring
connectivity and robustness is much more demanding than
in the wired case. Generally researchers traditionally use
simulations because they easily allow for a large number of
nodes and reproducible environment conditions. In
simulation, the developer controls the whole system, which
is in effect only a single component. But on the other hand,
here, our submission is for an implementation in real world,
which needs to interoperate with a large, complex system.
Some components of this system are operating systems,
network interfaces and suitable wireless drivers. This paper
throws a light on challenges to be faced in a laboratory
environment. Here, we practically explored the creation of
adhoc network which uses ix86 architecture and Linux can
run even in 80386 machines (at least requirement is
Pentium II), so we can gather all those old PCs intended
thrown away, adding a PCMCIA wireless card on each of
them and set up adhoc network in a laboratory at a very low
cost suitable for the academic researcher.
References
[1] J.Freebersyer and B.Leiver, “A DoD Perseptive on
Mobile Ad hoc networks,” Ad hoc Networking,Ed.
C.E. perkins,Addisson-Wesley,2001, pp-29-51
[2] C.E Perkins and P. Bhagwat, “highly dynamic
destination Sequenced Distance vector routing (DSDV)
for Mobile Computers,” proc. ACM SIGCOMM’94,
oct, 1994.
[3] D.B Johnson, “routing in ADHOC Networks of Mobile
hosts”, Proc. ACM Mobicomm, 94, Dec.1994.
[4] E.Royer and C.K.toh,a, “A Review of Current routing
ptotocols for Adhoc Mobile Wireless Networks”, IEEE
Pers. Commun,Vol6,no.4,Aprl,1999,pp-46-55.
[5] R.Ramnathan and M.Steenstrup, “Hierarchically-
organised Multi-hop mobile wireless Networks for
Quality of service support,”Baltzer Mobile Networks &
Appicications, 1998
[6] C.Santivaneez, R.Ramnathan and I.Stavrakakis,
“Making link state routing scale for Adhoc Networks”,
Proc.ACM Mobile 2001, Long Beach, CA.
[7] A.Iwatta, C.C.Chiang, G.Pei,MGerla and T.W.chen,
“Scalable Routing Stratgies for adhoc wireless
Vol. 2, No. 8, August 2010
Networks,” IEEE JSAC,Vol 17,no.8,Aug 1999,pp-
1369-79
[8] S.singh,M.Woo and C.S.Raghavendra, “Pwer Aware
Routing in Mobile Adhoc Networks”, Proc. ACM,
Mobicomm 1998
[9] S.B.Lee, G.S.Ahn and A.T.Campbell,” improving
UDP & TCP performance in mobile adhoc networks
with INSIGNIA,”IEEE Communications mag, Vol.39,
no 6, June 2001.
[10] L.Zhou and Z.J.Haas,”Securing Adhoc networks,”
IEEE Network, Vol13, no 6, Nov-Dec.1999,pp. 24-30.
[11] Nitiket N Mhala and N K Choudhari,’’ An Envision of
low cost mobile ad-hoc network test bed in a lab
environment emulating an actual ANET”,IJCNC,Vol
2,No.3,May2010,pp 52-63
[12] Wireless Network cards available at
http://www.netgear.co.uk/wireless_networkcard_
wg511t.php and http:uk.farnell.com/netgear/wg311t/
card-pci-w-wn-108mbps-netgear/.
[13] Fedoracore7 (FC7) Linux is available:
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/fedora7/i386/
[14] Madiwi-0.9.4 drivers are available for downloaded on
http://linux.softpedia.com/progdownload/madwifi-
download-12546.html
15] Etheral GUI network protocol analyzer using
tcpdump’s capture format available on
http://www.ethereal.com.
Authors Profile
Mr. Nitiket N. Mhala is PhD student and also
working as Associate Professor in the
Department of Electronic Engineering,
Sevagram, India. He received his ME Degree
from RM Institute of Research and
Technology, Badnera, Amravati University and
BE Degree from Govt. College of Engineering,
Amravati, Amravati University. He published
a Book Entitled PC Architecture and Maintenance and many
research paper at International and Nationl level. He is a member
of Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineer
(IETE). His area of interest spans Data communication, Computer
network and Wireless Ad hoc networks.
Dr. N. K. Choudhari is a Professor and
completed his Ph.D degree in Electronics
Engineering from J.M.I., New Delhi and
received his M.Tech in Electronics
Engineering from visveswaraya regional
Engineering College, Nagpur. He received his
BE in Power Electronics from B.D.C.O.E.,
Sevagram. Presently he is Principal at
Smt.Bhagwati Chaturvedi COE, Nagpur, India. He is guiding few
research scholars for persuing Ph.D degree in RTM Nagpur
University, Nagpur, India. He has worked as members of different
advisory committees and was a member of Board of Studies,
Electronics Engg. of Nagpur University, Nagpur, India.